Sometime next year the Austrian public broadcaster ORF plans to switch off the Betacrypt encoding of its domestic DTH bouquet. About 60,000 homes that rely solely on DTH reception with a Betacrypt satellite receiver will be affected. Although no exact date has been set, the change will happen sometime between January and May of next year.
The Austrian broadcaster currently uses Irdeto Cryptoworks for its services. In a related move, the German pay-TV operator Premiere recently announced it would offer a number of its channels also in Cryptoworks to serve viewers in Austria. About 1.1 million homes have a Cryptoworks receiver for the free-to-view ORF service.